December 05, 2008By D. Allan Kerr
the_culling@hotmail.com
Portsmouth Herald News (New Hampshire, USA)Here we are again, celebrating the season of peace and thanksgiving, counting our blessings and spreading joy to the world. It’s a time to reflect on – well, hell, you know how it goes by now.
This is that time of year when people tell us how lucky we are to live in the greatest, most freedom-loving country in the history of mankind. It’s when we’re encouraged to remember those less fortunate than us – the poor, the oppressed, the fearful and the damned. So in that spirit, here we go again:
I currently work with some fine outstanding American citizens who happen to be of Cambodian origin. The other day they brought in a CD of Cambodian music, mostly from previous decades. It was pretty catchy stuff, more modern than I had expected but also with what sounded like more traditional native influences. I was struck by the stylings of one guy in particular. He would croon a heart-ripping ballad in one number and then deliver a rousing rocker in the next; as warm and familiar as your grandfather’s sweater one moment and then as fresh as last week’s Top 40.
This man was the most famous singer of their old country, my co-workers said. Was he still around, I asked. No, they said – he had passed away. Then a bit later they elaborated – he had actually been exterminated by the Khmer Rouge back in the 1970s.
In fact, they said, the famous singer had been brought in by leaders of the Khmer Rouge and asked to compose a song celebrating their ascendancy. When he finished the song and then performed it, he was promptly executed.
In my homegrown American naivete I was kind of stunned by this. I asked one of my younger colleagues what artist in the United States had a comparable status. Elvis Presley, he said. I think I blinked and did a kind of double-take.
“So if our government had executed Elvis, that would have had the same kind of impact here as when this guy was killed in Cambodia?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“Wow.”
The artist in question was Sinn Sisamouth. I of course had never heard of him, but in Cambodian culture he is indeed considered a giant. And as we continued listening to the CD, my co-workers pointed out that several of the other singers we heard had also been murdered by the Khmer Rouge. One of them, a female artist named Ros Sereysothear, performed many duets with Sinn.
Knowing this totally changed the listening experience for me. The more melancholic songs were suddenly swathed in tragedy, while the rollicking uptempo tunes took on an epic poignancy. It was almost unsettling, listening to the music of these doomed artists who at the time had no way of knowing what was to befall them. In essence, they were singing their own death song.
Sure, we have our Kurt Cobains and Janis Joplins and Jimi Hendrixes, but these foreign superstars were the first I knew of who had died BECAUSE of the music they created. Our tragic artist-heroes tend to fall victim to their own excesses.
I’ve since researched Sinn Sisamouth a bit. I learned that as a singer and song-writer he helped usher in a whole new modern culture for his country, developing an innovative style that combined rock-n-roll with the more traditional classics of his heritage. He wrote more than a thousand songs over his career and is perhaps most beloved for his odes to the ecstasies and agonies of love. Classic hits like “Champa Battambong” have become part of Cambodia’s heritage. But to this day there is no clear evidence as to how his life came to an end.
During the dark and bloody days of the Khmer Rouge, vanishings were not uncommon and the infamous “Killing Fields” were put to frequent use. Led by the notorious madman Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge essentially sought to develop a society of farmers and laborers, and so proceeded to eliminate urban dwellers, intellectuals, capitalists, artists and so on. The regime is believed to have wiped out anywhere from 800,000 to 2 million people in the 1970s, or roughly one-fifth of the country’s population.
Just about every atrocity you can imagine has been attributed to Pol Pot’s followers, including the use of children to implement torture and executions. Celebrities made easy targets. While the scenario described to me of Sinn Sisamouth’s death has been widely circulated, there are other reports that he was in fact tortured, and that his famous tongue was cut out.
Another story suggests that it was he who asked to sing a song to his executioners, and performed a musical plea for justice. But his audience, consisting of ignorant barbaric rustics, was unmoved, and shot him anyway. By all accounts it seems he had too sweet a soul to survive this brutal era. Sinn was only 40 years old when he is believed to have died.
His old singing partner Ros Sereysothear also vanished during the regime. One rumor maintains that Pol Pot forced her to marry one of his assistants, who routinely abused her. Others imply that she died in a labor camp or was executed.
Yeah, I know – not exactly a storyin keeping with the holiday spirit. But Americans taking their liberty for granted is a well-worn cliché by now, and all too often it takes stories like these to sort of snap us into reality. We live in a country where singers, poets, artists, writers and moose hunters are free to express their thoughts and feelings through their talents and creativity without fear of imprisonment or torture. Think about how lucky we are.
The simple shock we experience when hearing tragic tales like the fate of Sinn Sisamouth – and the songs haunting us afterward in a foreign tongue -- remind us how alien such circumstances may be for most of us.
LOSER OF THE WEEK: Then on the other extreme we have Stephon Marbury, the $22 million-dollar point guard for the New York Knickerbockers. Here’s a man who has made an absolute fortune playing a game, and when asked to suit up to help out his teammates, he refused.
There’s a reason Marbury has never won an NBA championship. There’s a reason Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Marbury’s ex-teammate Kevin Garnett have. Chances are, Marbury will never figure that out in time to actually call himself a winner.
D. Allan Kerr has never understood how despots like Pol Pot can finish out their lives without ever having to face the consequences of their horrific actions. Kerr may be reached at the_culling@hotmail.com.
I was absolutely awestruck like running into a dead old friend who has just risen up from his grave. In my previous life of forty five years ago, I was a fortunate young man to be briefly part of a Phnom Penh combo orchestra that had “All Star” musicians and singers in it, including Bung Yang Chheang aka. Samneang Rithy — a name and a title I believe he deserves every bit of it.
